School board chief defends actions

News-Times, The (Danbury, CT)

Published 7:00 pm, Wednesday, March 16, 2005

Albert Juergens
, who was elected to the board in 2003, quit the panel earlier this month after hearing other board members publicly discussed his poor attendance record on March 3 without telling him.
Juergens, 47, said although he warned
Bruno
months ago it would be "very difficult" for him to attend future meetings because he had a new out-of-town job, Bruno had urged him to stay on because he said he needed Juergens' "fiscally conservative vote" on next year's school budget.
"You commented that it would be beneficial to your agenda if I not resign until after the end of the budget cycle," Juergens wrote in an e-mailed resignation to Bruno on March 5.
Bruno, 42, who has been school board chairman since 2003, said Wednesday he had never tried to coerce any member into staying.
"We try to function as a board and the board votes pretty unanimously," said Bruno. "It makes me sound as if I have some kind of agenda but I don't. There's little opportunity for me to maneuver votes. If anyone wants to make accusations against me about manipulating votes they'd better be ready to prove it."
Bruno said he did nothing that would violate any of the board's bylaws concerning the office of chairman or its code of ethics.
"There is nothing in the board's policy manual about keeping members on the panel. I did not pressure (Juergens) to stay," said Bruno. "I cannot make the ultimate decision but I did encourage him to give it a shot. Better to have him at a board meeting than an empty chair."
Other than its own bylaws, which carry no penalties, the

New Fairfield board
is guided by no other ethics code except one recommended by the
Connecticut Association of Boards of Education
, which is not mandatory.
"The association can make suggestions and recommendations but it's up to each individual school board to develop its own policy," said New Fairfield superintendent
Joseph Castagnola
.
Some board members at the March 3 meeting said Juergens' five-month absence may have violated Law 9271 of the board's ethics code requiring members to attend at least 75 percent of its regular and special meetings.
Juergens, a self-employed engineering management consultant, said earlier this week that after his election, he went to "virtually all" the board meetings.
Since November, when he began working for a client in Boston, he now comes home to New Fairfield mostly on weekends.
In his e-mail to Bruno, Juergens rebuked the chairman for not defending him at the March 3 session.
"Your lack of character and silence in the face of potentially defamatory comments is despicable," wrote Juergens.
At a regular meeting of the board at 7 p.m. tonight at the
New Fairfield High School
library, the panel is expected to go into executive session to discuss the controversy.
"I'd heard on the grapevine that that some people wanted to make an issue out of all this so I put it on the agenda," Bruno said. "I felt we should not be talking about each other publicly."
Board member
Ralph Langham
said Wednesday he hopes the meeting will be "handled with dignity" and referred to "individual problems."
"I don't know how things came this far," said Langham. "The board has achieved a great deal. Hopefully everything will be aired tomorrow and we'll get it over with."